"I have made up my mind to more than once, but really, Geoffrey, absurd though it may sound, I have never felt quite at ease in asking Margharita personal questions. She so obviously insists upon our relations remaining exactly those of employer and employed. It was not at all what I intended; but what can I do? I wish to be a friend to her, but her manner quite forbids it. She is far prouder than I am."
Lord St. Maurice shrugged his shoulders and kissed his wife's forehead.
"I shouldn't trouble about it, dear. They are a headstrong, intractable race, those Marionis, and this girl takes after her mother. Treat her kindly and she'll come round some day. Come and sit in the library if you have nothing better to do for half an hour. I have some stupid letters to write."
"I will come in one moment, Geoffrey," she answered. "I may as well clear off some of my correspondence debts. There are some invitations to answer, too."
Lord St. Maurice left the room and Adrienne remained by the window, her eyes fixed upon the little group which had come to a standstill now on the summit of the low line of cliffs. The field glasses were still on the table by her side, and raising them to her eyes, she watched them steadfastly for several minutes. When she put them down she was a shade paler, and there were tears in her eyes.
"If I thought that it would wipe out the past," she murmured, "after all it might be well. But how can it? He will never forgive! Never! never!"
She turned away, brushing the tears from her eyes, and went into her husband's room smiling and comely. Such sorrows as she had were not for him to share—not even for him to know of. The burden of them was for her alone.
And, meanwhile, Lord Lumley, her only son, was leaning against the trunk of a pine tree on the brow of the cliff, with something very much like a frown upon his forehead; and a little distance away, Margharita was calmly reading to Gracie out of a French picture book, brought, as Lord Lumley had been quick to surmise, chiefly with a view of excluding him from their company. It was quite true, as his father had remarked, that he had received very little encouragement from Margharita; in fact, he had been told somewhat plainly, a few minutes ago, that his presence was interfering with the lesson. "As if there was any necessity to bring lesson books out of doors," he had muttered sotto voce, withdrawing himself a few yards, however, and relapsing into an irritated silence. The book had been brought on his account altogether. There was no doubt whatever about that, and, manlike, he felt aggrieved. Of course he ought to have gone away at once, and he had started with that intention, but the sound of Margharita's voice arrested him before he had gone half a dozen yards. After all, it would be pleasanter to stay and listen.
So he stood there, crumpling up a sprig of heather in his hand, and ostensibly waiting for a shot at a sea gull. He was quite aware that no sea gull was likely to rise anywhere near, and that his gun was unloaded, but the excuse was the only one that had occurred to him at a minute's notice. His real object in remaining was that he might walk home with Margharita when the lesson was over.